I’d Like a Pound of Sanity
5 Ways You Can Try to Help You Find Yours
Hello, there. How are you doing today? Do you care to talk? Are you having trouble finding your sanity in this crazy world?
I am a bit of a smart ass at times, especially when someone wants to know how I’m doing. I probably shouldn’t be, but after dealing with groups of teenagers for 34 years, I developed a thick skin and a tendency to react with sarcasm.
When I taught high school and someone asked me how things were or what I was doing, I might reply that I was in search of Life, liberty, and sanity.
When times were rough and I was struggling, you might have heard me say, “I’m GRRRRReat!” (Think Tony the Tiger from the Frosted Flakes commercial.)
Overwhelmed one day, I even caught the person behind the grocery store deli off guard.
The young lady handed me the pound of shaved ham. “Is there anything else I can get for you?”
Taking the plastic bag, I continued with my order. “Yes, I’d like a pound of sanity.” I couldn’t help it. The request just came. And then it hung there for a moment.
“I’m sorry, who makes that.”
The young lady was stone dead serious.
“Sanity. I’d like a pound of sanity.”
“Yes, I got that. But who makes it? Boar’s Head, Oscar Meyer? Who?”
I shook my head, and the words came out before I could shut them off. “Sa — ni — ty. Sanity.” She gave me a blank stare. “I guess there is no sanity here either.”
I still use that request, but I guess that a large enough number of people are now looking for sanity because people laugh and tell me that there is “None here.”
In the past four years, however, that sarcasm has softened. I don’t mean that I’m the person who will spill my proverbial guts on the table when someone asks how I am doing. I just mean that I’m not as quick on the snarky comeback as I used to be.
WE ARE ALL LOOKING FOR A BIT OF SANITY
I write about growing up, growing old, and living life in this crazy world at Life is for Living.
On mornings when it is not too cold, my husband and I sit and have our coffee here. My personal sanity, however, has forced me to place care-giver before writer, so my postings on Coffee on my Porch have been far from consistent.
This morning I was reading comments on my Facebook feed posts. One of those comments caused me to pause and write this article.
I had re-posted Shayne McClendon’s words that Power of Positivity had shared with me: “I will breathe. I will think of solutions. I will not let my worry control me. I will not let my stress level break me. I will simply breathe. And it will be okay. Because I don’t quit.”
These were powerful words for me yesterday as I struggled for personal sanity, and I thought at least one other person might benefit from them.
I thought, this morning, that I would search for another “poster” about sanity, stress, and not quitting. Another way to tell people that there is a light at the end of the tunnel, and it is not a train. Another way to tell people to keep fighting the struggles they are fighting because eventually they will win.
So, I typed “the struggle for sanity is real” into Google.
I didn’t find what I was hoping to find: something that speaks to those of us who find the world just a bit insane. Instead, I found more of an explanation and writing about critical substance abuse, severe mental illness, depression, and a documentary from 1996, Back from Madness: The Struggle for Sanity.
I don’t want to dismiss those with mental health issues. Please, don’t think that. Their struggle for sanity is definitely real.
I’m thinking, instead, about those of us who are struggling with sanity because of what life has handed us and what we are dealing with outside of ourselves. Those of us who have not turned to alcohol or drugs and become addicted because we can’t find a shred of sanity in life. (Their struggle for sanity is real as well.)
My family and friends who are struggling with children with disabilities or a terminal illness. Their struggle for sanity is real.
My family and friends who are struggling with a child who is excessively rebellious. Their struggle for sanity is real.
My family and friends who are struggling with health issues: their own or those of their spouse or significant other. Their struggle for sanity is real.
My family and friends who are struggling with the health issues of their aging parents, especially those who have developed Alzheimer's or dementia. Their struggle for sanity is real.
My family and friends who are struggling with someone who is addicted to alcohol or drugs.
My family and friends who are struggling to be heard at their job, who don’t like their job (but it is a job, and they have no choice). Their struggle for sanity is real.
My family and friends who have, or are, the shelter for someone who is struggling. They have opened their home as a safe haven and that creates stress. Their struggle for sanity is real.
My family and friends who are struggling with financial issues. Their struggle for sanity is real.
SO, HOW DO WE FIND SANITY THAT DOESN’T COME FROM A COUNSELOR, BOTTLE, OR DRUG
These are some of the things that go on in my house to combat our struggle for sanity.
TURN ON THE MUSIC
Almost every morning begins with music. Whether it is turning on a specific radio station, a CD, or my husband playing DJ on YouTube, music happens in our house. Whether it is my playing piano or violin or the two of us learning how to play the guitar, music happens in our house.
Hubby’s most recent tattoo is the medical emblem with the words “Music is my medicine.”
Music centers us, lifts us, and energizes us.
HUGS & HUMAN CONTACT
As a teacher, I was appalled when the directive came down that we shouldn’t have ANY physical contact with our students. No pat on the back. No hug. Nothing.
So many of our students, at the time, were in desperate need of human contact that I believe we did a disservice to them by holding back. We were told to understand that our students had a lot on their plates, but no physical contact. How many of them could have used a hug? How many of them would have done better with the positive physical message of a pat on the back?
When I was part of a Happiness Club, we went to the local mall with signs: Free hugs for the asking. We hugged a lot of people that day. You could almost feel the hug lift that person’s spirit and put the smile, not just on their face, but in their body and soul.
I need hugs often. I hug my husband, but I also hug my chiropractor and I have hugged the nursing staff that worked on the cardiac floor of the hospital when my husband was in for bypass surgery. I hug friends and co-workers.
There is great power in a hug. A great sense of connection that we need for survival and sanity.
WATER
Water has given me balance for years. Not drinking it, but being near a running stream or river, a raging waterfall, or the incoming waves of a large lake or ocean.
There is a great soothing power in the sound of moving water.
In college, when stress became elevated and I wondered where sanity had gone, I took a walk to one of the two beaches along Lake Michigan that were close to my dorm.
My favorite was Lighthouse Beach where there were enormous boulders. I’d climb up a few levels, sit, and listen to the waves wash onto the sand. The other beach was in Gillson Park. Here, I’d take my shoes and socks off and walk along the sand and let the waves rush over my feet if it was warm enough.
In Gatlinburg a couple of springs ago, I set out on hikes to find some of the mountain waterfalls. The powerful sound of the water crashing over the rocks preceded finding the waterfall by more than a half an hour.
When we moved in 2015, I needed to be near the ocean, the Gulf, the mountains, and some river. We are near the Duck River in Tennessee and no more than six hours from the ocean, the Gulf, and the mountains.
In 2017, The Eli Young Band released “Salt Water Gospel” which explains my connection to water the best.
WALKING
Stress and insanity create a need to move for me, and walking is the easiest movement I can participate in. All I need to do is put on my socks and shoes, open the door, and put one foot in front of the other.
Sometimes I even take the dogs with me.
Walking centers me. It allows me time alone with my thoughts in search of a solution. And I find I am a better, more focused person after a good 30-minute walk.
WRITING
I keep, most days, writing my Morning Pages as suggested in the book The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron.
BUT,
before I read that book, I kept a number of journals starting when I was in junior high school. There is more to the journals than what the words convey.
When I was angry, you can tell by the pressure and size of the writing.
When I was moody, the slant of the writing changed every few lines.
When I was contemplating something, the size of the letters was smaller.
When I was struggling with some issue, the space between the words was larger.
Oddly enough, that has not changed.
I have written my way through junior high school and high school relationships and trauma, through college struggles, through raising kids, through struggles at work, through divorce, through the relationship with my second husband, and through death of loved ones, as well as through all of the positive experiences I have had.
I realized when I was cleaning out my mother’s house in 2013–2014 that I come by writing naturally. I found many of my mother’s and grandmother’s journals.
YOUR TURN
In this crazy world, what do you do to combat the stress and insanity that life hands you? Please take a moment to share in the comments.
Rebecca (Becky) spent 34 years in a teaching career, but when she retired in 2014, she picked up her pen and pursued her passion to write. As a high school English teacher, Becky held the philosophy that she wouldn’t give any writing assignment that she personally wouldn’t or couldn’t do. That philosophy strengthened and broadened her own writing.
In addition to publishing her writing on various platforms, Becky also blogs at Life is for Living, a blog to encourage, motivate, and help others live the best life possible. As an extension of Life is for Living, she also publishes a weekly newsletter, Let’s Chat. (Check it out HERE.) Life is for Living also has a social media presence with the group Coffee on my Porch. (Check it out HERE.)
After teaching writing for 34 years, Becky began Ink & Keyboard, a blog for writers at all levels. She supplements what she writes on the blog with a subscription newsletter, The Writer’s Notebook (Check it out HERE.) and the social media group Ink & Keyboard (Check it out HERE.)
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